The Abandon Series | Book 2 | These Times of Retribution

by Schow, Ryan

  “Yeah,” Garrity said, picking up where Colt left off. “But who pulls their strings, and who pulls their strings? If you ride the chain of command up, it’s not unreasonable to think this is one arm of something far more powerful and nefarious than even we can imagine.”

  “Exactly!” Gator said. “That’s my point, Colt.”

  “You weren’t exactly clear about it.”

  “I’m not as articulate like Sheriff Garrity here,” Gator said. “I know these guys don’t have the moxie to pull this off, but depending on who is funding all this…it is possible, right?”

  He looked at Garrity who nodded, chewing it over.

  Walker had told Garrity plenty, enough that he knew there was seed money for projects like this at the very top levels of power. They were often backed by foreign governments who had infiltrated the nation’s most powerful institutions, then held in place through control of the media. But he couldn’t say that out loud because it sounded insane coming out of Walker’s mouth, and it would sound even crazier coming out of his.

  “Sheriff?” a woman asked.

  He turned and said, “They’ll help you inside.”

  “Okay, thanks.”

  The woman had that downtrodden look about her, the kind he always fell for. This was the reason he even went into law enforcement, to help people like her.

  He glanced back at Colt and Gator. “In 2020, the riots were funded by both American and non-America benefactors. That was the word on the street. But no one ever proves anything because everything is too manipulated, and everyone is allergic to the truth.”

  Already he was sounding crazy.

  Gator and Colt looked at each other, then Gator said, “Well, yeah.” Colt was nodding his head, like he believed it, too.

  “Do you think it’s the same groups?” Colt asked. “The same people up top, but different forces on the ground?”

  Garrity shook his head in mock defeat. “All of this stuff is way above my paygrade. Can you take me to West Jessamine High School? People are supposedly gathering over there. Maybe I can sync up with Nicholasville P.D., see if they know any more than I do.”

  “Yeah,” Gator said. “Jump in the Jeep. Let’s go.”

  Garrity went back into the office, told Laura and Marilyn where he was going, then he, Gator, and Colt meandered through the chaos of a city of nearly thirty-thousand souls. It looked like a ghost town in some places, and they had a hard time getting past all the vehicular obstructions. Everything just died where it stood. It was sad.

  “Pull into the middle school,” Garrity said, seeing members of Nicholasville P.D. there in uniform.

  Gator pulled into West Jessamine Middle School where the chief of police and a few of his officers were helping control the efforts of volunteers. Outside, several large tents were set up for cover from the rain, and a huge fire pit had been put together so that people had a way to stay warm.

  Inside the school, he imagined there were members of the community making room for people who needed help, warming up food where they could, seeing if people needed medical attention. The chief waved at him; he returned the gesture.

  “Just pull up here,” Garrity said to Gator.

  Garrity crawled out of the Jeep, made a bee-line to the chief, and—sparing any pleasantries—said, “Any word on the cause of all of this?”

  “We’re short on people, Lance.”

  “That goes without saying.”

  “Jesus,” the old man said, sniffing the air around him. “Did you drown in the bottle?”

  “No, but not for lack of effort,” Garrity said, keeping his arms close to his body to hold in his more offensive odors. “But don’t let the hundred-and-fifty-proof fumes fool you. I’m about ninety-percent solid right now.”

  “You’re about ninety-proof right now,” the chief said. “How many people do you have?”

  “You know how badly our funding was cut,” Garrity said. “Guys who signed up to protect and serve are now dodging real calls to collect county taxes.”

  “We’re doing stupid shit, too, which is why I don’t care about your funding,” the chief said. “How many deputies do you have? I’m talking guys and girls who can put their asses on the line for this city.”

  “Two and my dispatch, although my dispatcher is a bit chubby and has a bum ankle. She can shoot straight, though, if she needs to.”

  “What about those guys?” he asked, nodding at Colt and Gator.

  “They’re friends of mine,” Garrity said.

  “Can you deputize them?”

  Garrity shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Behind the chief, closer to the tents, a scuffle broke out over a plate of food. This dirty-looking guy grabbed an older woman’s food, then shoved her down. The chief had turned in time to see what happened.

  “Hang on,” he told Garrity.

  He walked over to the guy who was looking at his ill-gotten gains, and he punched him right in the face. The man fell hard, grabbing his nose where the chief caught him clean. Instead of letting it go, the chief kicked him in his head until he was out cold. He then bent down, picked up the food, and handed it back to the woman. Before she could thank him, he turned and shouted, “This will not stand!”

  “You can’t just hit him,” another guy said.

  “You want to bet?”

  “But you’re the police!” another woman said.

  “And I restored order,” he said with authority. “Do not steal from each other!”

  He looked at one of his officers and said, “When this sack of crap wakes up, drag him out to the street and tell him he’s not allowed back here.”

  The chief returned to Garrity and said, “In case you haven’t figured it out, we’re going to have to rule with an iron fist whether we like it or not.”

  “That’s a very thin line, Chief.”

  “Yeah, it is. And if you don’t walk the right side of it, these people will turn against you, me, all of us.”

  “You don’t have to tell me twice,” Garrity said, although he wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed because they were in uncharted waters. “You know this was an EMP, right?”

  “Of course I know.”

  “So you understand the implications, what comes next, right?”

  “It means these uniforms, these badges, and these guns will only work for so long. After that, law and order will go out the window, and from there it’s every man and woman for themselves.”

  “How long do you think we have?”

  The chief shrugged his shoulders. “A week, maybe less?”

  “Then what?”

  “We’ll have to smoke the trouble causers.”

  “Just kill them?” Garrity asked, leaning forward, trying to keep his voice down.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I’m saying.”

  “That’s not the way we—”

  “This is the way, Lance. This is the way.”

  Garrity drew a stabilizing breath, his nostrils flaring, then he glanced over at Gator and Colt. Could he expect those guys to kill the city’s most toxic citizens? He didn’t know how he’d even ask that. Could he do it? Just start killing all the problem children without legal justification? He shook his head like he couldn’t do it, even though, tactically, it made perfect sense.

  “What?” the chief asked.

  “I was drunk because…I already started taking out the trash. I didn’t mean to do it on purpose, like premeditation or anything, but these guys—these Hayseed Rebellion idiots—they fired on me, shot my car to shit. I wanted to report it…”

  “How many of ‘em did you kill?”

  “Two.”

  The older man graced him with a slow, contemplative nod. He then patted Garrity’s shoulder and said, “It’s a good start. But it’s not nearly enough.”

  “What are the chances of us turning this around?” Garrity asked, not terribly shocked by the man’s answer.

  “My wife’s cousin was on the EMP Commission. If
he was even halfway right, we’re about to descend into the dark ages. Meaning there ain’t no turning around. There’s only us going into it. I’m not mincing words because I want you to know what this means, what kind of hell we’re about to sink into.”

  Garrity knew exactly what it meant. It meant that the world was about to enter a die-off stage, and the earth would soon be littered with corpses.

  “Is there any reason we shouldn’t start taking them out now?” Garrity asked, changing direction as the reality of things settled in.

  “Not yet,” the chief said. “We need to maintain civility for as long as we can. If we go hunting these scumbags too soon, we’ll lose credibility. Now, if we can deal with them when they pop up, we can hopefully maintain the illusion of law and order long enough to mobilize more men and women.”

  “What about the looters?” Garrity asked. “I’m hearing they’re already at it.”

  “For now, with our numbers, we can’t just show up and kill them,” the chief said. Then, looking over Garrity’s shoulder once more, the old man said, “But they can.”

  “They have families,” Garrity explained, which was true about Colt, but not about Gator. The truth was that if he didn’t have to, he didn’t want to put either of them into a bad position. “Listen, I’ve got to get to the high school, see if I can help set things up.”

  “Remember, rule with an iron fist,” the chief said. “First the fist, then the guns.”

  “Roger that.”

  He got in the Jeep and said, “Let’s go.”

  The three of them arrived at the high school where they saw more people gathering outside. A lone woman was trying to corral the crowd, answer all their questions one at a time, maybe even quiet them down because it looked like everyone was demanding answers at the same time.

  Garrity got out and worked his way through the crowd to where the school’s principal was quickly losing control of the situation.

  Turning around, Garrity said, “Everyone, please be quiet for a moment.” To the principal, he smiled and asked if she was okay.

  “Thank God you’re here,” she whispered. “I feel like I’m getting mobbed with questions I can’t answer.”

  Raising his voice, he turned and asked, “How many of you are physically hurt? Raise your hand if you are.”

  No one raised their hand.

  “Hold up your hand if you haven’t eaten in two days.”

  Again, no one raised their hand.

  “So you’re not hurt, and you’re hungry but not starving. This means you can be peaceful, respectful of those around you, and calm. If you can’t stay calm, if you have a mental disorder, raise your hand.”

  For the third time, no one raised a hand.

  “I need four leaders, people who have led in the past. Show me your hands.”

  Five hands went up.

  “Good,” he said. “All of you, please step to the side.”

  Three men and two women stepped aside, gathering together. To the principal, he said, “Find out their leadership experience, select the top four leaders in your mind, then let’s reconvene. I’ll separate these people into four groups. Do you have the keys to the school?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “but what about the fifth person?”

  “Give me a second.” Over the crowd, he waved Gator and Colt out of the Jeep. Both men came over. To them, he said, “The chief wants me to deputize you, but I can’t because I’m not a US Marshall, and he should know that.”

  “He probably does,” Gator said.

  “Why would you say that?” Garrity asked.

  “The best you can get in deputizing us is for us to form a citizen posse. But that won’t give us the right to make arrests, or do anything in terms of physical force beyond what we’re already legally allowed to do.”

  “That’s right,” Garrity said, impressed.

  “So what do you want us to do?” Colt asked.

  He pondered the question for longer than he should, looking between the two men. Then he said, “There are reports that people are looting—”

  “Where?” Gator interrupted.

  “Walmart, Kroger, food banks, guns and ammo stores, liquor stores, boutique shops.”

  “You were saying,” Colt said, trying to let the man finish.

  “If they’re regular folks, if you can, if it’s not too much trouble, try to stop them. If it’s HR or an offshoot of those cockroaches, kill them.”

  He watched something pass through Colt’s eyes, an emptiness, then a return to humanity. He said, “We can’t just go killing folks.”

  “Yes, you can,” Garrity said. “I’ll be here to cover for you. Same as I’ll do with Keaton and his dumb friend.”

  “I need to pick up Leighton,” Colt said. “Then check on Rowan and Marley.”

  “I’ve got you covered, Sheriff,” Gator said. The two of them bumped knuckles, then Garrity told them he needed to stay at the high school.

  When Gator and Colt took off, Garrity headed back to the crowd and said, “Alright, everyone with kids, form a group. Would the elderly, sixty-five and older, please form a group as well?” Of the eighty or so people, one large group became three good-sized groups. “For those of you without a group, those who don’t have kids or are not elderly, if you’re married, please take a step back and form a third group.”

  What was left was the single folks, who prudently gathered together. Inside the group of parents with kids, he spotted the woman with the Honda Pilot. She was standing with her little boy not looking so well. Garrity smiled; she smiled back, but it was a pained, forced smile. The principal cut the moment short with her verbal dossier on the five “candidates.”

  She said she had her four leaders, but then she told him about a former Boy Scout leader. “This was before the Boy Scouts became just the Scouts,” she said. “He has the least amount of actual leadership skills.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Robert.”

  “I want Robert to be your assistant, okay?” Garrity asked.

  She nodded.

  “You sure?” he asked.

  “He seems a little strange but okay.”

  “A lot of those guys who used to be in the Boy Scouts were a little sketchy. Doesn’t mean he’s bad, not all of them were, it’s just…keep your eyes open.”

  “Should I keep him from the kids?”

  Garrity laughed and said, “There were a lot of really good Scout leaders, so no. Absolutely not. Not unless you have a reason to believe otherwise.”

  “I’m just asking.”

  “Not everyone’s a predator,” he said, “and not everyone is a suspect.”

  Garrity turned to the former Scout leader and said, “Robert, I would like you to work with Susan here in a larger leadership role, if you’d like that.”

  He nodded.

  Garrity then assigned the four groups to the four remaining leaders.

  The principal, Susan, then said, “We’re going to make a single-file line into the gymnasium where we will set up a check-in center. I don’t exactly know how we’ll make this work, but we’ll need to, so if you have any ideas on ways to make this work, run them up through your team leader.”

  Everyone nodded, then as a group, they moved inside, thankful to be out of the elements. Garrity hung back, and so did the woman with the Honda Pilot and her kid.

  “I’m surprised to see you here,” he said.

  “I live down the street,” she replied, holding her son’s hand. “I’m happy to see you here!”

  She didn’t look as put-together as she had when she visited him at the station. He didn’t mind. There was something about her he liked.

  “You didn’t let me know how to contact you, or how to thank you for the pie.”

  “I’m here now,” she said with a smile. It was a tired smile, though, and her child looked weary, unwashed. She picked him up when he said he was cold. His lips were slightly blue, his skin extra white.

  “What happened to yo
u?” he asked.

  “My ex-husband came back, but I told him to go back to his girlfriend’s house. He took the Pilot, so I couldn’t get anything to eat before all this. And it’s cold. Do you have any idea when the power will come back on?”

  He looked at her, not sure what to do, then he said, “You’ll need to get inside and see if we can figure things out. And honestly, I’m not sure when the power will be back on.”

  Just then, a few cars came rolling up. They were run-down relics, half of them stinking to all hell of gas fumes and oily exhaust, the other half of them sounding like their engines were knocking.

  One of the cars pulled off the road into the school while the other cars carried on. The car pulled up beside him. The window rolled down and a white guy with slicked-back black hair said, “Yo, you the Sheriff?”

  “Yeah,” he said, wondering if he should reach for his weapon.

  “A bunch of thugs are up at the Cornerstone Baptist Church off Keene Road.”

  “And?”

  “People are gathering there, but a bunch of those skinny-ass white kids and America haters are harassing them.”

  “Why didn’t you do anything about it?”

  The driver looked at the guy in the passenger seat, then back at the sheriff. “We follow the law, Sheriff.”

  “Are you armed?” Garrity asked.

  “Is that illegal now?”

  “If I need you for backup with these guys, can you two provide it?” he asked.

  The man smiled and didn’t need to look at his buddy. “Hell yeah we can, but only if we get formal permission from you.”

  “You’ll have it.”

  “Get in.”

  He looked at the woman and said, “I’ll check back with you in a bit, okay?”

  “Be safe,” she said. “And…it would be nice to see you again.”

  He felt something from her, something different. Did she like him for his role as a protector, or did she like him for who he was as a person?

  “It would be nice to see you, too,” he said, and he meant it.

  He quickly got in the car, looked at the kid in the passenger seat, and said, “Any of you fellas ever take a life?”